Children's television programming advocate Peggy Charren died Thursday at 86 from vascular dementia. Charren's name is inescapable in the history of children's programming, having lobbied for better quality children's TV shows by founding Action for Children's Television (ACT) association in 1968. She was inspired to form the organization after watching a day of kids' TV with her children that she would later deride as nothing but "monster cartoons" with a "lack of diversity, a dullness." (Remember, this was one year before Sesame Street debuted.) She then formed ACT and decided their first target would be violent cartoons and programming where the show's host or child stars directly hawked products to children, something she deemed harmful because children couldn't discern the line between programming and a sales pitch. None of the three major networks agreed to meet with her about her concerns until Michael Dann, CBS' senior vice president for programming, gave her a listening ear in 1970. Six months later, he resigned from his post and joined Children's Televison Workshop, whose educational programming like Sesame Street and The Electric Company set a high standard in the 1970s. Charren is responsible for many improvements in network TV programming for my generation, including the eventual curtailing of vitamin ads pitched at youngsters. She again raised the roof in the early 1980s with the proliferation of shows like Strawberry Shortcake that she saw as more of tool to pitch toys to kids than teach them anything worthwhile. However, she never stooped to censorship tactics, only advocating that programmers give children more quality choices. "I don't think The GoBots will make kids' hair fall out or anything," she said in 1986. "The bad thing about it is that it keeps all of the other stuff off the air."
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Walburgh's BlogMostly retro, mainly music, but generally whatever's on my mind. Archives
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